Mercedes EQE looks better than EQS

[fullmetalbaal]

Yes, this guy might have tested more EVs than anybody else.

Loud statements are marketing stuff. The reality of course is, that there is a big empty hole when it comes to available software developers in Germany.

The German car companies have a big advantage with their deep and very long engagement in the Chinese market. And here is where the future music plays - particularly when it comes to EVs, battery tech, autonomous driving and software. What the tech guys in Silicon Valley do and what they earn is basically irrelevant.

Well, that's the other shoe that's going to drop: Chinese OEMs and the Chinese market.
Everybody keeps writing Lucid/Rivian/Porsche/MB will now kill Tesla.
When the only real threat IMHO is Chinese OEMs. (Actually, Musk has said as much)

(The same is true the other way around: I don't see Tesla ramping enough volume to really hurt VW anytime soon. But the Chinese OEMs in aggregate, on the other hand...)

Software and specifically ML/autonomous driving-wise, the US is still ahead by quite a margin as far as I can tell. Maybe this will change, maybe it won't. The Silicon Valley lead has been declared dead at least 4 times since I moved to the US. Totgesagte leben länger.

The more important point is: Chinese companies are actually able and willing to pay top dollar. They can and will outbid US high tech for top talent. German companies have not been. I would argue they are culturally at a disadvantage: can you imagine to uproar we'd have when unions found out that they have to weather a 30% reduction in force, while Diess (or really, the VP of software) would be hiring software developers making millions of dollars each?

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[Scandinavian]

And what happens a few years down the line with quality and service?

I am not interested directly in a Lucid car, and I do not know if they will be on sale in France either.

But I would consider any new EV from Us or elsewhere (not China for other reasons) instead of an ICE manufacturer. As stated somewhere else the legacy ICE builders will have huge problems surviving. Their business model with subcontractors etc is in trouble when ost becomes SW.

And for service, I think any new EV entry will have a clean sheet of paper and the right competencies from the start. They will be trained and have all the tools necessary for servicing their EV.

Compare that to ICE cars. Think about it! You go to a workshop that services the car and that is where the dealer makes his money. And then you buy a car from that workshop.

What help is it to have service etc on an EV when all the workshop guys are trained with spanner’s and screwdrivers. Look at all the issues with Taycan on SW now. And all the issues will have to be analysed and solved in Germany. There is extremely limited knowledge and skills in SW at dealer level. They can mostly fix mechanical issues but have no idea on SW.

 

[feye]

Software and specifically ML/autonomous driving-wise, the US is still ahead by quite a margin as far as I can tell. Maybe this will change, maybe it won't. The Silicon Valley lead has been declared dead at least 4 times since I moved to the US. Totgesagte leben länger.

Of course not dead...

If you look at what NIO, XPeng, Li Motors, etc push out in terms of autonomous driving, I don't think they are behind. A lot of big tech players like Huawei, XiaoMi, Tencent are in the game, next to Baidu with their excellent map data and technology.

I have seen one of these robo taxis, and I also have recently seen a mini city bus, fully autonomous.

 

[feye]

I am not interested directly in a Lucid car, and I do not know if they will be on sale in France either.

But I would consider any new EV from Us or elsewhere (not China for other reasons) instead of an ICE manufacturer. As stated somewhere else the legacy ICE builders will have huge problems surviving. Their business model with subcontractors etc is in trouble when ost becomes SW.

And for service, I think any new EV entry will have a clean sheet of paper and the right competencies from the start. They will be trained and have all the tools necessary for servicing their EV.

Compare that to ICE cars. Think about it! You go to a workshop that services the car and that is where the dealer makes his money. And then you buy a car from that workshop.

What help is it to have service etc on an EV when all the workshop guys are trained with spanner’s and screwdrivers. Look at all the issues with Taycan on SW now. And all the issues will have to be analysed and solved in Germany. There is extremely limited knowledge and skills in SW at dealer level. They can mostly fix mechanical issues but have no idea on SW.

How you could come to such an assessment, while purchasing the most expensive EV from a "legacy" (dumb fanboy word!) manufacturer, Porsche, as soon as it was available? Makes me speechless!

A friend has a Model X from Hong Kong. It died, battery - electronics problems. The border is closed. So he has to get service here. They said they cannot fix it, because the car is from another "country". Took them a couple of weeks to sort it out.

I always remove everything related to T (fanboy garbage) from all my SM. Then finally the real information become available...

 

[Kingske]

How you could come to such an assessment, while purchasing the most expensive EV from a "legacy" (dumb fanboy word!) manufacturer, Porsche, as soon as it was available? Makes me speechless!

A friend has a Model X from Hong Kong. It died, battery - electronics problems. The border is closed. So he has to get service here. They said they cannot fix it, because the car is from another "country". Took them a couple of weeks to sort it out.

I always remove everything related to T (fanboy garbage) from all my SM. Then finally the real information become available...

I agree that Tesla has questionable practices but one day there may be an ‘ab initio’ EV company which gets its attitude right and maybe just acquires a traditional ICE company to get an injection of mechanical and mass-manufacturing know-how?

 

[Scandinavian]

How you could come to such an assessment, while purchasing the most expensive EV from a "legacy" (dumb fanboy word!) manufacturer, Porsche, as soon as it was available? Makes me speechless!

Might leave you speechless, ok. But I liked the look of the mission e, I believed the marketing hype that they had run the car x million miles before launch and fell for it. Only myself to blame. I nearly, very nearly , bought an original Tesla Roadster, but did not dare to do that at that stage. After that I just could not find any EV for a long time. Tested Leaf, Zoe, i3 and a number of others. Ordered a Polestar, but cancelled the order when they slipped on delivery etc. When the sales guy contacted me for a Taycan I held off for a while. I have A23 year old 996 C4 cab with 160 k km and it has been extremely reliable. Good prompt service and happy. Thought same experience would come with the Taycan, but not even close.

The Taycan drives fantastic. when it runs. Everybody has given praise to that. Car reviewers, owners, you tubers. But I am sick of having small issues so frequently. No communication , so pre heat will not work in places like ski resorts, or when it is hot. The seats are not in the correct position, because it is stored in the cloud. The navigation does not divert when the motorways are blocked! The stored radio stations needs to be entered again ever so often. Far t op often I have to spend time getting things back to where they had been when I left the car. irritating when you just want to get somewhere.

One example the other day. I needed service on my 2010 Aston. A friend drove that and used the old Volvo navigator in it. I think the map data is from 2016. I drove the Taycan and the navigator guided me successfully straight into a accident on the motorway. Delay by over an hour. The old Volvo navigation diverted the Aston by an old protocol via ordinary radio, while the Taycan is supposed to have LTE. When my friend asked me where I was, he could not believe that the Taycan had not diverted me. He was in front of me by about 10 minutes and avoided all the trouble.

And then on top of this Taycan in the workshop in chunks of 2 to 3 weeks and “”No fault Found, Sir!”

I am lucky that I have not had any of the really bad faults like 12 volt battery or drive train faults etc. but these niggles are getting to me now. car is 18 months old while it has spent more than two months in the workshop.

A lT of this is down to incompetence from the Porsche service organisation as well as the very clumsy SW architecture.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Of course not dead...

If you look at what NIO, XPeng, Li Motors, etc push out in terms of autonomous driving, I don't think they are behind. A lot of big tech players like Huawei, XiaoMi, Tencent are in the game, next to Baidu with their excellent map data and technology.

I have seen one of these robo taxis, and I also have recently seen a mini city bus, fully autonomous.

In terms of self driving, I would claim Waymo is still ahead of everybody else in terms of fully autonomous. I would claim Tesla is ahead of everybody in terms of the learning/deployment platform (number of cars fully deployed with hw, data gathering + learning cycle, deploying updates every 2 weeks etc). It's exciting to see 2 such different approaches now duking it out.

So far I've not seen anything out of NIO or XPeng that those two haven't done first. Would love any pointers.

Baidu Maps has mostly been a clone of Google Maps. For China in particular, where Google doesn't really play, they have the best data. That's of course super important for the China market, but doesn't really show innovation leadership (yet).

But I think we're both really of similar opinions: the Chinese companies are the ones to watch going forward. They are learning faster. I think we're just of different opinions as to whether that intersection already happened.

Either way, I haven't seen anything to make me believe that VW or Daimler are equipped to handle this. They are also underestimating the sheer financial power of their new competitors. They are used to being king of the hill. Chinese and US high tech can put insane amounts of money into new ventures. Both from existing cash reserves, as well as by raising capital in a way unavailable to traditional car OEMs (at least thus far).

 

[Scandinavian]

But I think we're both really of similar opinions: the Chinese companies are the ones to watch going forward. They are learning faster. I think we're just of different opinions as to whether that intersection already happened.

Either way, I haven't seen anything to make me believe that VW or Daimler are equipped to handle this. They are also underestimating the sheer financial power of their new competitors. They are used to being king of the hill. Chinese and US high tech can put insane amounts of money into new ventures. Both from existing cash reserves, as well as by raising capital in a way unavailable to traditional car OEMs (at least thus far).

Completely agree with your conclusion. The Chinese EV companies are the ones to watch. They are launching quite a number of vehicles at this moment, so it will be interesting to see.

The sad thing is that Diess at VW has fully understood this. And then to see and hear that he is under scrutiny for upsetting the bloody Unions that do not want to rock the boat.

 

[Scandinavian]

But I really would like to know what GM is smoking for breakfast. Seems Biden and GM have morning smokes together

 

[fullmetalbaal]

Completely agree with your conclusion. The Chinese EV companies are the ones to watch. They are launching quite a number of vehicles at this moment, so it will be interesting to see.

The sad thing is that Diess at VW has fully understood this. And then to see and hear that he is under scrutiny for upsetting the bloody Unions that do not want to rock the boat.

Exactly: this is what I meant with the cultural disadvantage.
It took them half a decade longer than should have been the case. Fine, better late than never.
But now their own ranks are fighting it! Normally, I'd say this will resolve itself with time... But they don't have any to spare. They are already behind. And both Chinese and US companies are accelerating.

Hard to win a fight when your right arm is busy punching you in the face...

In the broader context, EVs have actually torn down a lot of the moat around the industry/market. And startups will always be faster in terms of certain types of innovation. Why is it that Autoland Deutschland has brought forth so few viable startups so far? If nothing else, as easy acquisition targets for the traditional OEMs (a la Cruise for GM).

 

[Kingske]

In terms of self driving, I would claim Waymo is still ahead of everybody else in terms of fully autonomous. I would claim Tesla is ahead of everybody in terms of the learning/deployment platform (number of cars fully deployed with hw, data gathering + learning cycle, deploying updates every 2 weeks etc). It's exciting to see 2 such different approaches now duking it out.

So far I've not seen anything out of NIO or XPeng that those two haven't done first. Would love any pointers.

Baidu Maps has mostly been a clone of Google Maps. For China in particular, where Google doesn't really play, they have the best data. That's of course super important for the China market, but doesn't really show innovation leadership (yet).

But I think we're both really of similar opinions: the Chinese companies are the ones to watch going forward. They are learning faster. I think we're just of different opinions as to whether that intersection already happened.

Either way, I haven't seen anything to make me believe that VW or Daimler are equipped to handle this. They are also underestimating the sheer financial power of their new competitors. They are used to being king of the hill. Chinese and US high tech can put insane amounts of money into new ventures. Both from existing cash reserves, as well as by raising capital in a way unavailable to traditional car OEMs (at least thus far).

The intersection probably has not happened yet but is more than likely to happen in the not-too-distant future. It is also no coincidence that one of the more EV-minded legacy brands - Volvo/Polestar - is Chinese.

 

[fullmetalbaal]

But I really would like to know what GM is smoking for breakfast. Seems Biden and GM have morning smokes together

How Biden has been ignoring Tesla & shaping legislation to subsidize traditional OEMs with tax payer money is just depressing. Why did we need a UAW handout in a bill designed to improve infra and fight climate change?

 

[Scandinavian]

???

 

[feye]

Either way, I haven't seen anything to make me believe that VW or Daimler are equipped to handle this. They are also underestimating the sheer financial power of their new competitors.

I don't think so.



He is impressed how the German car manufactures are pushing forward with software.

 

[Roppe]

One example the other day. I needed service on my 2010 Aston. A friend drove that and used the old Volvo navigator in it. I think the map data is from 2016. I drove the Taycan and the navigator guided me successfully straight into a accident on the motorway. Delay by over an hour. The old Volvo navigation diverted the Aston by an old protocol via ordinary radio, while the Taycan is supposed to have LTE. When my friend asked me where I was, he could not believe that the Taycan had not diverted me. He was in front of me by about 10 minutes and avoided all the trouble.

Just out of curiosity from someone still waiting for the car - do you normally only use the built-in Navi? I have been a Tesla owner for the past 6 years, and one of the things I am really looking forward to is to use the Android Auto/Apple CarPlay to access Wayze or Google Maps as these are by far the best at getting you to where you need to be. Or does this solution come with some drawbacks?

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